Silver Wolf Clan (11 page)

The wolves seemed to hover around Morgan like planets around a sun. When she turned her body, they turned. When she shifted her weight, six other bodies did too. She offered to help
Rachel finish dinner, and everyone moved into the kitchen with her. Was it like this for all newcomers? Had it been so when Grey met them for the first time?

Logan sniffed her hair again while she tossed a Caesar salad with large wooden tongs and startled, she took a step away from him.

“Mine,” Grey snapped as Logan tried to sniff the back of her neck.

Logan averted his eyes and moved away. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

Alexis spoke up from the table. “She doesn’t smell like yours. It’s obvious you haven’t bedded her yet. You haven’t even claimed her, and everyone can smell it. So she isn’t really yours now, is she? It’s your fault Logan can’t keep his nose out of her hair.”

Heat blazed up the side of Morgan’s neck. A menacing growl ripped through Grey. She shook her head slightly and turned back to Alexis. Human or no, she could handle a jealous she-wolf.

“I’m sorry he didn’t want you,” she said levelly. “I know that’s why you are upset, but he’ll bed me soon enough.”

Grey’s face went completely slack, his eyes widening to round golden orbs. The other wolves whistled and cat called, but he couldn’t seem to take his attention away from her.

“Since you feel like our sex life is pack business, Alexis, it was my decision to wait,” she said, cutting slices of cornbread from a cast iron skillet and giving the fuming woman her back. “We have a connection I can’t explain. It was there from the second I met him in his last moments as a human. I’d like to wait until we’re married, or whatever it is you werewolves do to commit to your mate, and Grey supports me in my decision.”

Alexis’s eyes narrowed into dangerous looking slits. “Yeah, yeah, you aren’t attracted to each other. We get it. Has he even kissed you yet?” Her pretty face morphed into a snarl. “Because I have it on good authority he is a great kisser. Aren’t you darlin’?”

Morgan stopped cutting and set the knife slowly on the counter. Such anger over words shouldn’t have been possible. Alexis was just trying to get under her skin, so why was she letting her? Why had Grey kept a kiss with Alexis from her? If he thought it wasn’t a big deal, he was sorely mistaken. And on top of everything, she’d had to learn about it in front of everyone whose opinion mattered?

Hers. That beautiful, dangerous, quiet, strong, sometimes shy but always protective, masculine, imposing creature was hers. She’d be damned if an envious woman made her question her place in his life. The room was so quiet, she could almost hear the strum of tension as they waited for her reaction.

She turned and reached for Grey. If it was a show they wanted, a show they would get. Grey leaned down and kissed her as if he’d known her exact thoughts, knew what she needed. He lifted her, pulling the back of her thighs gently until her legs were wrapped around his waist. He opened her mouth, lapping his tongue against hers, and tightened his arms around her back.

The slow claps turned to cheers and inappropriate whistles. Cheeky werewolves.

She disentangled herself from him, laughing, and he nuzzled her neck then set her down. Alexis had disappeared, but Morgan bowed with a twirl of her hand. Grey eased her toward the front door and she gave a little wave to Jason, who nodded and mouthed,
nicely done
, as she passed.

“Need a minute with my lady,” Grey rumbled softly.

The stars were out by the trillions, silver glitter against a black paper backdrop dancing around a half moon. Grey came up behind her and slid his arms around her waist. She’d never get used to the strength and comfort of his warm embrace. Her insides turned molten at a touch from him. He gripped her shirt and she melted back into the immovable planes of his chest.

His breath caressed her ear’s tender lobe. “Did you mean it earlier?” he asked, his deep tenor vibrating deliciously against her back and exposed neck. “Did you mean what you said when you told Alexis I’d bed you soon enough?”

“That all depends on you, Mr. Big Bad Wolf,” she said as she nuzzled her cheek against his. “Ask me, and I’m yours.”

He smiled against her skin. “Do you have a preference in rings?”

Her heartbeat skittered. “None.”

If his lips touched her neck again, she’d explode into a thousand yearning pieces. “Grey,” she whispered.

“Hmm?”

“You’re killing my resolve.”

His teeth grazed the tender skin at her throat, and her knees threatened to buckle. She closed her eyes and leaned into him, but he was gone.

“You keep making little noises like that, and you’re going to kill my resolve,” he said from his seated position on the porch railing.

He was inhumanly fast but that didn’t scare her. Nothing about him did. Maybe her instincts were broken.

Like one who’d taken three too many dollops of peach schnapps, she stumbled in behind him and tried to put the frayed, happy-drunk pieces of her mind back together.

Inside, everyone gathered around the huge dining room table. Brandon and Jason rigged up a chair with stacked pillows for Lana to sit in, and she was already stuffing her face with beef stew and talking to Rachel. She sat in a chair next to Marissa, who laughed at something the little girl said.

Dinner was quiet with a weightless, comfortable silence as they filled hungry stomachs. Grey leaned back in his chair and draped his arm around the back of hers. He hadn’t kept his gaze from her for long during the meal, but whether because of their warming conversation outside or his adopted pack seemingly accepted her and Lana so easily, she couldn’t tell. Even if Wolf was present through the steady color of his eyes, he was happy and more relaxed than she’d imagined she’d see him. How could anything top such a feeling? This complete and utter confidence and comfort with another person. Who cared if they weren’t the same? They’d make it work, because even if he hadn’t said those three, all important words out loud, she felt them to the very core of her being. His golden-eyed gaze boring into her soul said he felt the same.

“I have to Change,” Grey said.

Dean frowned. “You just changed yesterday.”

Grey’s fingertips brushed her back gently and he looked thoughtfully down at his empty bowl. “I had to stop a Change half way through today in my apartment.”

Dean gave a sympathetic curse under his breath. “You want company?”

“Wouldn’t suck,” Grey said with a calculating look at Logan.

Logan’s eyes shifted to a light gray, unnatural color as he watched Grey.

A low rumble escaped Grey’s throat, and he leaned forward. “I’m hurting, but not that bad.” He sounded more demon than man. “Challenge me, and I’ll lay you out.”

Logan cowered. “I wasn’t going to, man. My wolf might have a death wish but I don’t, and I’m the one in control.”

Morgan rested her hand on his thigh, and Grey relaxed back into the chair.

With the clatter of empty spoons on empty dishes, Marissa took Lana to her room to play. Rachel said she preferred not to Change with the pack unless it was a full moon hunt.

Everyone escaped to the dark of the night and all was quiet. Morgan would never Change with them. She’d be the one to wait patiently by for the wolves to turn back into her friends, and the thought made her feel hollow. Was she the lucky one, or they?

Marissa and Lana played and giggled from above. In an effort not to interrupt their games, she checked out the office on the main floor instead. It boasted an impressive library. If ever she had questions about werewolf folklore, here was the place to start.

Bored and curious, she made her way out to the front porch to wait for Grey and the others. The porch swing creaked lazily under her, and she covered her legs with a blanket she found tossed over the back of it. Grey had shifted to an in between creature right in front of her. To vanquish the discomfort of such a memory, she needed to see him fully transformed.

At a noise, she jerked her head. The wolves yipped and barked nearby. Almost finished, then.

A shadow moved in the dark. A brown wolf with lighter brown eyes stared back through the haze of the late evening hour. It must’ve been Grey. She waved slowly. Maybe if she saw them often enough, she would be able to tell each wolf by the color of their coat.

The wolf paced closer, relaxed.

She smiled at him.

The wolf lunged.

That scream. He knew that scream. The exact pitch and tenor of the cry still haunted Grey’s nightmares.

Morgan.

He tore at a dead run through the back yard. The others trailed behind him naturally. Time dragged, and he pushed his legs in a burst that threw him in front of the porch. The stink of violence, blood, and fear drowned him. He skidded to a halt, horror making his hackles rise.

Alexis had found Morgan and was ripping into her leg. Morgan fought back, kicking, hitting her, but Alexis held on with single minded tenacity. The wolves froze behind him as Grey bolted forward and latched onto the back of Alexis’s exposed neck. He threw her into the side of the truck. Her limp body fell into a puddle of slick mud next to the vehicle. A deserving grave.

There was too much space between his body and Morgan’s, and the other wolves were too close. He bolted to Morgan, whose chest rose and fell so fast he was sure she’d pass out. Large gashes through the muscles had laid her leg wide open. Strips of jean material hung from her like bloody tendrils, pulling her to hell. Alexis had gone straight for the artery, cheating Morgan out of a clean death. She looked into his eyes, her pupils dilated with undiluted panic and shock. “Grey? Help me,” she gasped.

Blood everywhere, and the smell soaked into everything. The wolves inched forward, their attention riveted by her exposed leg. No matter how loudly Grey snarled his warning, the flowing, fresh blood dulled their human senses until they were nothing but bloodthirsty animals.

They inched closer, some on their bellies, others pacing nervously. He pulled his lips back. He’d kill them all.

Roaring, gnashing his teeth, he warned the wolves what was coming for them. A few scattered under his power-fueled rage and dove for the woods. Others stopped and cowered, but a couple, including Alexis, now recovered, were still coming for Morgan. Predators drawn instinctively to an unfinished kill. Grey stepped over her body and covered it with his.
Mine
, his posture said.

Alexis charged first, and he viciously fought her. Even through her high pitched whining, he still ripped into her. A dark gray and white wolf, Logan, went for Morgan’s leg. Grey swung his neck around, threw Alexis as far from Morgan as he could and attacked him. Logan was too close to her body and there was only time enough to clip his leg out from under him before he was on her. It slowed him down enough to give Grey a split second to lunge and drag the fight further away. He clamped down on his muzzle, ready to break it and suffocate him, but there wasn’t enough time before the others came for Morgan. None of the wolves were trained to fight something like Wolf. A true monster, created from a man-eating savage. Grey relinquished all control to his ebony rider.

Wolf had swiftness with breakneck accuracy, wielded brutal size with razor sharp teeth and jaw strength honed for snapping bones. He was fashioned after Beast and created to be Ripper. Another wolf rushed him and Alexis charged him again. Grey fought Logan and Brandon, and as Alexis jumped to land on Morgan, something hit her hard and she flew sideways. Dean stood there with a huge stick, defending Morgan’s form with a look of furious savagery.

“Get back!” Dean bellowed. The crack of power in his voice ricocheted off the trees. The wolves retreated, slunk away. “Go Change. Now!”

They skittered back into the woods under the command of their alpha.

Grey placed himself over her body again. Dean dropped the branch and held his hands out in surrender, but he didn’t care. Submissive gesture or not, no one would touch his mate without losing something vital.

“Grey, we need to take her in. We have to try to save her. We’ll do everything we can for her. Please,” Dean pleaded.

Morgan, Morgan, Morgan. His Morgan. Her life energy grew dimmer by the moment, like an ember that lacked oxygen. The thick iron scent of her blood tainted the air until it was all he could smell. She’d lost so much, and still he couldn’t drag himself from her.

In the window above, Lana whimpered and asked Marissa what was wrong. She was scared.

Think, Grey, think.

They had to try and save her. Everything good in his life depended on his ability to let them try. Slowly he retreated, closing his eyes against the burn of leaving her. Spinning, he ran for the inky shadows of the woods without looking back. He couldn’t look back—couldn’t see her limp body or empty eyes or the river of blood flowing across the porch. A whine crawled up the back of his throat, and he paced the outskirts of the yard. He needed Lana. Needed to hold her and cry with her, tell her everything was going to be okay and pretend it was true.

The wait for a Change was excruciating. Nothing happened. He tried again with the same results and roared in frustration, over and over until his voice turned into the agonized howls of a wolf who had lost its reason for existence. Three human voices rose, joined him from inside the house. He couldn’t tell who, nor did he care. His Morgan was gone, and he sang a wolf song to honor and mourn her.

Exhausted and lost, he began the agonizing Change. The pain was welcome. Anything to escape the bottomless anguish for even a moment.

He pulled jeans on at the truck and pulled his shirt over his head as he walked through the front door. Rachel rushed to him with tear filled eyes.

“Where is she?” he demanded.

“Grey, you’re bleeding badly. We need to have Wade look at that after he’s done with Morgan—”

He roared, “Does she live?”

Rachel crouched to the floor in terror. “I don’t know, but I think not.”

Despair washed over him. Morgan. He needed to find her. To hold her body until they dragged him away.